The quarterly national accounts present an overall picture of the short-term economic development within the framework of a system of coherent definitions and classifications. Statistics Denmark started publishing quarterly national accounts in 1988. Quarterly sector accounts have been published since 2008.

Description of contents

The National Accounts statistics uses a functional view presented in the national accounts and an institutional view presented in the sector accounts to describe economic flows.

The economic transactions are described with special reference to product flows in the form of output, intermediate consumption, household consumption, non-profit institutions serving household consumption and government consumption expenditure, import and export of goods and services, gross fixed capital formation and changes in inventories.

The main aggregates from the Production account and Generation of income account and figures on employment are compiled for 13 industries plus a special item for the activities in General government (memorandum item). "Main aggregates" are considered output, gross value added, compensation of employees and gross operating surplus and mixed income. The two first-mentioned items are also compiled at chained values. In addition, information in current prices and chained values is for household consumption expenditure divided into 13 consumer groups and gross fixed capital formation divided into 7 types of investment products plus a special item for gross fixed capital formation in general government (memorandum item).

In the sector accounts the point of reference is the decision-making units. The decision-making units are split into the following sectors: Non-financial corporations, financial corporations, general government, households and non-profit institutions serving households.

Statistical concepts

Quarterly national accounts are compiled in accordance with the guidelines applied in the EU as described in "European System of National and Regional Accounts ESA2010".

The main structure of the quarterly national accounts consist of a number of consolidated accounts for the economy as a whole referred to as: Goods and services account, Production account, Generation of income account, Distribution of income account, Use of income account, Capital Account and The rest of the world account.

The Goods and services account shows total supply of goods and services in the form of output and imports of goods and services. The supply is equal to total uses of goods and services divided into intermediate consumption, final consumption expenditure, gross fixed capital formation, changes in inventories and exports of goods and services.

The central aggregate GDP (Gross Domestic Product "BNP: bruttonationalprodukt") appears on the Production account. The Generation of income, Distribution of income and Use of income accounts show the incomes generated in the production process, to whom these incomes accrue, and how they are used.

The Capital account shows how gross savings are used on gross fixed capital formation and changes in inventories, resulting in net lending/net borrowing. This, in turn, corresponds to the balance on the Rest of the world account, which largely corresponds to the balance of the current account on the balance of payments.